Monday, 22 August 2016

Our House - Before and After Photos: Lounge & Dining Room

In December 2015, Luke and I bought our first house together, and we (when I say we, I mean he), spent the first 8 months decorating every single room. Finally we're in a position where almost everything is finished so I'm really excited to share the 'after' photos.

Considering when we bought the house, it was in a relatively good state, most people said we were crazy to waste our money decorating much when it was 'fine'. Yes, it was fine, but it was someone else's house, their style, their tastes. Now it's us, every single inch of it.

I have previously written posts about our inspiration for the lounge and dining room which looking back, we completely stuck to throughout. We knew all along we wanted a white house with touches of grey, a pop of colour and some mirrored furniture.

'Before' photos

'After' photos

One of the first things we did is restain the orange coloured wooden floors with a whitewash effect. The final result wasn't quite as white as we'd hoped for, but an extra coat would have made it too white so we settled with that and we're overall really happy with it.

Next up was the sofa which was really important to me. I fell in love with this sofa from John Lewis as I LOVE a corner sofa and though it was the best shape to compliment the room, and it also had a low back and wasn't too bulky which was really important in such a small room. I did chose a lighter colour to tie in with the rest of the room but typical Luke went back to actually order it and decided to change the colour without consulting me. I don't hate it, but I don't love it either... not sure I'll ever get over that one...

Anyway, both of our lamps, and also nearly all the lighting in our house came from BHS. I'm absolutely heartbroken they're no longer trading because I loved their lighting range so much and it's really good value for money.

The drawers are a one off piece from our local garden centre and were £375 originally which we thought was quite a lot for what they are. We'd been eyeing them up for ages and then by chance Luke's dad saw them reduced because the back leg was broken so we bought them straight away and fixed the leg easily enough which we were both really happy about.

Probably one of the hardest decisions of this room was the dining room table. We looked at so many it was getting absolutely ridiculous. We didn't want it too big because it's quite a small area and didn't want to spend too much money, but then we also wanted really comfortable chairs for when we have friends over. I'm so in love with the stunning Cattelan Italia Carioca table from Fishpools Dining Table Range - if you haven't checked them out before, you need to - but I warn you, you'll fall in love with everything - Fishpools Furniture. In the end, we spent the whole day in London going to every furniture shop we could think of an settled on this simple but comfortable Scandinavian style table and chairs set. The white matching with most of the room, and the chair legs with the floor. It's not the most stable of furniture, but I guess that's reflected in the price, although considering we eat at the table literally once every two months if that, it was a good buy!

Our stunning chandelier is from my beloved BHS, and the ginormous 7ft by 5ft mirror is from eBay which I really think opens up the room completely. We always like to have fresh flowers on the table, and these ones are from my favourite ever flower delivery service Bloom and Wild.

The final part of this room is made up of the unit which was handmade to fit perfectly under the stairs. It's one of the parts of the house I fell in love with when I first saw it and I love it even more now filled with our bits. It's a part of the room I still want to work on but I haven't got around to properly planning what I want to fill up the empty spaces so for now it's filled with everything we love and present's from all of my beautiful blogger friends as housewarming gifts.

Where possible I've tried to add links to the actual products we bought for the house, and if not, then something as similar as I can find!